


Grief

by wheel_pen



Series: Venkii [4]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trip is trying to deal with a difficult anniversary. Mila tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Venkii are humans who left Earth long ago, and have a few extra enhancements by now. Mila is a young Venkii woman who has joined the crew of the Enterprise, in Engineering. She can communicate with the ship in a special way.
> 
> 2\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

In between “Women on Board” and this story, Mila, a young Venkii woman, has joined the crew of the Enterprise as a sort of exchange student. She’s been properly bonded to the ship and sent to Engineering, even though she doesn’t have much of what Trip would call practical engineering knowledge. But she can communicate with the ship and repair things in the way of Venkii women. Sometimes she and Trip clash.

****

             All his staff had reported for duty, on time and eager to work. All the diagnostics had come back within normal parameters. The warp core was humming its soothing tune. The ship had not been attacked by hostile aliens. He had not been sent on any away missions that resulted in injury or embarrassment. And even with the general lack of excitement, he couldn't say he was bored, as there were a number of interesting, potentially useful but not urgent side projects he had been working on.

            But Trip was having a lousy day.

            "Ramirez! What in the h—l is this?" he snapped, picking up a hypo-spanner from the floor. The ensign quailed under his fierce gaze. "Am I your _mom_ now? Do I have to actually _remind_ you to put your tools away when you're done?"

            "I'm-I'm sorry, sir," she squeaked, taking the hypo-spanner. "I was just coming back for it, sir, I had my arms full—" But Trip had already rolled his eyes and walked away.

            "Commander, is it okay if I go over to the Armory for a while?" Ensign Abijou already had his toolbox in hand and was turned towards the main door.

            "What? No," Trip told him sharply, looking up from the panel he was checking. "Why?"

            Abijou looked slightly surprised. "Ensign Bortrecht asked me to take a look at a phase coupler they've been having trouble with, sir." He nodded at the Security ensign standing a few steps away, suddenly hesitant under the Chief Engineer's glare.

            "Tell Lieutenant Reed that if he wants to 'borrow' one of my engineers, he can make an official repair request, just like every other d—n department does," Trip told Bortrecht coldly.

            When the ensign didn't respond right away, Trip gave him a look, and the man straightened quickly and replied, "Yes, sir!" before leaving.

            Abijou stood frowning at his superior officer. "You have your duties here to attend to, Ensign?" he asked pointedly. "Then get back to them."

            "Okay, _first_ of all," Trip began, voice dripping with condescension, "it's called a _phase manifold inverter_ , not 'the little blue glowing thing.'" Mila's expression indicated she was undaunted by his disdain. "And _second_ —why are you bothering me to ask if you can realign it? Isn't that your _job_ , to realign things?"

            "Last week you yelled at me for realigning something," Mila pointed out coolly.

            Trip narrowed his eyes at her. He was not equipped to deal with Mila's particular brand of insolence today. "Realign it," he ordered harshly. "And don't waste my time with d—n trivialities," he added, stomping away. His back turned and his thoughts black, he missed the pensive gaze Mila gave his retreating figure.

            "He's not in here, is he?" Ramirez asked nervously, glancing around the crowded Mess Hall during the lunch break.

            Mila quickly accessed the internal sensors. "No, he's still in Engineering," she assured her tablemates, who were visibly relieved. "One of the stewards is supposed to bring him lunch there."

            "He is in a _terrible_ mood today," Abijou commented unnecessarily. "I thought he was gonna take Bortrecht's head off! And since when does the Armory have to fill out _repair requests_ , for a simple phase coupler adjustment on a slow day?"

            "I was coming _right back_ for that hypo-spanner," Ramirez insisted to them. "He's always telling us to be careful with the EPS modifiers, so I was carrying it with both hands. I made sure the hypo-spanner was out of the way first and everything."

            Mila blinked at them. "Apparently the little blue glowing thing in the wall is actually the phase manifold inverter," she revealed dryly, then took a bite of her chicken salad sandwich. The other two looked at her oddly for a moment, then continued eating and b---hing about Commander Tucker's behavior that day.

            "Sally Pederssen told me that when she asked him to double-check her warp field diagnostic he told her he thought she was out of kindergarten and already _knew_ how to read the results screen," Abijou conveyed in a gossipy tone.

            Ramirez rolled her eyes. "Frankly I don't know _how_ Sally Pederssen got through kindergarten, let alone the rest of grade school, before her boobs were big enough to pass for brains," she remarked cattily. Abijou snickered. Then Ramirez looked at Mila quickly. "Uh, she's not in here, is she?"

            Mila shook her head. "Engineering. This week she's on 'B' lunch break."

            "Well that's the weird thing, isn't it?" Abijou pressed, leaning in conspiratorially. "I mean, usually Commander Tucker is oh so _happy_ to 'double-check' any result Sally gets. If you know what I mean," he added with a smirk.

            "What do you think he's upset about today?" Mila asked her companions. She liked Ramirez and Abijou. Ramirez had given her a lot of helpful advice about conventions and rules in _Enterprise_ 's Engineering department; Abijou, on the other hand, did what Mila told him to and _didn't_ try to give her any suggestions or orders. Together they kept her appraised of who was who on the ship and their relation to one another.

            Although sometimes their drawbacks as friends were obvious, as when they sat staring at her dubiously for asking a simple question. "Who knows," Ramirez finally shrugged, going back to her lunch.

            "Maybe Commander T'Pol gave him the brush-off again," Abijou suggested with juvenile amusement.

            Mila's glare towards the ensign went unnoticed. T'Pol, though an alien, was an extremely able officer whom Mila had developed a great deal of respect for. She certainly didn't entirely understand the Vulcan philosophy of suppressing emotions in favor of pure logic—it sounded pretty unappealing to her, actually—but her commanding tone, slightly arrogant attitude, and well-considered advice reminded Mila pleasantly of her mother.

            T'Pol was certainly preferable as a leader to Captain Archer or Commander Tucker, in Mila's opinion; both of them generally tried so hard to be friendly to those under their command, to maintain a 'casual' atmosphere, that Mila found it difficult to take them seriously. She knew it had to be a cultural divide; the rest of the crew seemed to hold both Archer and Tucker in high regard—at least as long as their good moods prevailed. Yet, paradoxically, the junior crew did not seem particularly interested in their commanding officers as _people_ , as evidenced by Ramirez and Abijou's lack of serious contemplation of the _reason_ for Tucker's ill humor.

            Well, Mila certainly had other resources she could tap on that front. Only half-listening to the comments her tablemates made, she began searching through the personnel records, looking for clues.

           

            Trip knew there were stages of grief. Having spent the last eight hours trapped in the one where every little thing anyone did irritated the h—l out of him, he had now moved on to melancholy malaise, the complete inability to do anything useful except sit in his quarters and stare at her picture. Soon, he reasoned, he would be continuing to abject misery and self-pity, likely followed by the unwise decision to get completely plastered, thus ruining tomorrow as well. It seemed like a good plan at the moment, anyway.

            His comm buzzed and, still being in the lethargic stage, he was loathe to answer it. Finally at the second buzz Trip forced his hand to stop gripping the picture frame and hit the button. "Tucker here."

            " _Hey, Trip_." Jon. " _I hadn't seen you all day, I was just wondering how you were_."

            Jon sounded—too friendly. Too cautious. "I'm fine," Trip told him casually. "Kind of tired, really."

            " _Well, yeah..._ " Jon cleared his throat. " _Hey, I've got the latest water polo finals, Stanford versus New Orleans—why don't you come over and watch them with me?_ "

            Trip glared at the comm, suddenly furious. He knew Jon, and he knew that tone in his voice. He was feeling _guilty_. Guilty because he hadn't remembered what day it was until, probably, just now, and he thought a little water polo and oh-so-careful conversation might assuage that guilt. Trip swallowed, hard, willing his voice to sound normal. "Actually, sir"—he could practically feel Jon recoil at the title off-duty—"I was really planning on just turning in early. If it's all the same to you."

            " _Um, sure, yeah, of course_ ," Jon finally answered. " _I understand. We'll talk tomorrow, alright?_ "

            Like h—l they would. Trip didn't need to be cornered in the Ready Room with some kind of half-a-sed speech Jon was making up on the spot. "Sure, yeah." The channel closed. Trip went back to staring at the picture, reminding the misery that now would be a good time to show up, as the self-pity had apparently already arrived.

            Not five minutes later the door chimed. Trip felt his jaw tense as his teeth ground together. He wanted to throw something, hard, to see and hear it smash against the door, to let whoever was there know that he didn't want to see them. At the same time he was slightly curious; he couldn't imagine it was Jon, after the rebuff Trip had given him.

            Taking a deep breath, Trip pulled on a mask of civility and stood to open the door. When he had, he really wished he _had_ thrown something breakable at it instead. "Good evening, Commander," Mila said crisply.

            Trip sighed, long and slightly rude. "What's the problem?" he asked, resigned to some quirk of engineering interrupting his evening of depression.

            "In Engineering? There isn't one," she replied, her voice giving away nothing.

            He had one arm braced on the doorframe, a subconscious barrier to her entering his cabin, and he rubbed his eyes to disguise his frustration, every muscle in his body longing to just shut the door in her face and go back to his desk. "I'm really tired right now, Mila," he warned her. It had worked on the Captain. "What do you want?"

            He hadn't noticed she'd been holding something in front of her this whole time—just her _head_ was nearly eight inches below his, at least when she wasn't wearing heels, after all—but now she lifted it up to him. Trip blinked and stared at the object, which appeared to be some kind of dark brown lump on a plate. He gave her a mystified look.

            "It's a bittersweet pudding," Mila told him, as if that explained everything. It didn't. "On Venkii ships," she continued matter-of-factly, "we eat them on the anniversary of the death of a loved one."

            Trip stared at her for a moment, then had to look away. "Um... I..."

            "It's for you," she added, as it seemed like he hadn't quite grasped that part.

            Trip took the plate. His whole posture had changed—he felt vaguely like she'd punched him in the stomach, only it wasn't exactly painful. He swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, struggling to come up with some to say in response. "You, uh... you made this?" he finally asked.

            "I did," she confirmed. "It took some persuasion to convince Chef to let me use his kitchen." Trip was still staring at the pudding. "There are a number of death anniversary customs from the various subcultures of Earth," Mila went on conversationally, "but I didn't see any in the database that pertained to Florida."

            "We, um"—Trip cleared his throat—"we don't really have a, um, set tradition. For the..." His voice trailed off.

            Mila nodded. "We find it very helpful, actually, to get together with other people who knew the deceased and talk about them," she mentioned. She could have been talking about a problem with the realignment of the little blue glowing thing for all the warmth in her voice, but Trip was actually grateful for that. He hated the feeling that he was being treated with kid gloves. "Well, I hope you enjoy it, Commander," she finished. "Good night."

            "Uh, Mila," he called after her, finding his voice. She stopped and turned back. "Thank you. For the pudding." She gave the smallest smile, then kept going.

            Trip pulled back into his cabin, staring at the brown mass on the plate. It was not exactly what he would call _appetizing_ , but he supposed one didn't really eat it to alleviate hunger. _Bittersweet_... Suddenly the idea of sitting alone in his room making himself miserable didn't seem so appealing.

            Before he could change his mind, Trip tapped a code into his comm. "Hey, Jon?"

            " _Trip. Yeah?_ "

            "I'll put a ten on New Orleans."

            He could hear the smile in Jon's voice. " _Gotta be present to win, you know_ ," he pointed out.

            "Be right over," Trip assured him, then glanced at the pudding. "I'll even bring a snack."


End file.
